Annette Klein

From Turtledove

Annette Klein
Fictional Character
In High Places
Nationality:	United States (home timeline)
Religion:	Judaism
Date of Birth:	c. AD 2058
Occupation:	Student, Trader, Slave
Parents:	Jacob and Tiffany Klein
Affiliations:	Crosstime Traffic

Annette Klein was a high school senior who worked with her parents for Crosstime Traffic. Although she was Jewish, the Klein family passed as Muslim traders in an alternate where the Black Plague had killed over 80% of Europe's population, forcing the continent into a near-permanent medieval period. As a Muslim merchant's daughter, Annette caught the eye of a young man from the Kingdom of Versailles named Jacques. Jacques was ordered by Duke Raoul to shadow the Kleins and report back on their activities, although the Kleins were unaware of this. While preparing to return to their own time at a portal in Marseilles and enroll in Ohio State that fall, Annette (known as Khadija to the locals) was ambushed by Muslim slavers and both she and Jacques were sold into slavery in Madrid.

Unfortunately for both of them, they were purchased by an illegal underground Crosstime slavery ring that kept slaves for entertainment. Annette was forced with other female slaves to weed huge garden patches, where she found herself becoming friends with a fellow slave woman captured locally, named Emishtar. Annette was horrified by slavery, as it had been eliminated in her timeline, due to industrialization. Annette was particularly frustrated by a fellow slave, Birigida, who refused to do work, and routinely incurred the wrath of the guards. However, to her surprise, Annette learned that Birigida was in fact from her own timeline, and had paid to briefly live as a slave in order to satisfy her desire to be controlled. By shadowing Birigida, Annette was able to eventually escape back to the Madrid of her home timeline and alert Crosstime authorities. Annette herself became something of a local celebrity as she single handedly unmasked the corruption of an elite faction of Crosstime Traffic authorities, who had thought their high positions would protect them from punishment. She took a year deferment from Ohio State and instead testified against the criminals, recovered from her adventures, and deepened her friendship with Jacques, whom Crosstime had deemed too risky to return to his own timeline.